


All Things Counter

by ruanyu



Series: All Things Counter [1]
Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Awesome Peggy, Bruce Is a Good Bro, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Has Issues, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Bucky Barnes Returns, Bucky Barnes-centric, Coulson Lives, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, POV Bucky Barnes, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Pre-Relationship, Protective Bucky Barnes, Protective Clint, Protective Natasha, Protective Steve, Recovered Memories, Sam Wilson Is a Good Bro, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Steve Feels, Steve Needs a Hug, Tony Is a Good Bro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-09
Updated: 2015-07-09
Packaged: 2018-04-08 12:33:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4305258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ruanyu/pseuds/ruanyu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You have the same daemon as Bucky,” a boy with a freckled face marveled. His own daemon, a monkey, was sitting on his shoulder, clinging to his ginger hair. “That’s so cool.” </p><p>The soldier turned to face the boy, silent, and something about his face made the kid back away, rejoining his family, glancing back at him nervously. The soldier was not surprised. He looked at the hyena. To the soldier, his daemon looked nightmarish. Ugly.  His sharp needle teeth were exposed, dangerous jaws parted in readiness to bite. </p><p> </p><p>  <i>Your daemon's so ugly, Barnes. So damn ugly. Hyenas are cowards. They're scavengers. They're thieves.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	All Things Counter

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Pied Beauty" by Gerard Manley Hopkins.

It had been so long since he had heard the hyena make a single sound that the whine, barely there as it was, startled the soldier into almost drawing his weapon in the middle of the crowded museum.

Lobo had padded away from him and was standing before a larger than life image of the soldier’s face. The soldier, drawn towards the flickering image, stood silently, staring at this man the target had called Bucky, the man that wore his face so easily. He looked nervous but determined, mouth downturned and chin outthrust. Whoever he would become later, in this image he was nothing but a scared green boy with something to prove.

There were words next to the flickering face. The soldier heard the familiar words in someone else’s voice. _Your name is_ _James Buchanan Barnes_.

People drifted around him, talking loudly and pointing out the displays to each other while he and his daemon stayed in one place. He realized he had drawn attention to himself by his very stillness when a young woman with a name tag came by, her chinchilla scampering at her heels, and, thinking him feeble-minded or damaged, asked gently if he needed any help.

He shook his head, watching warily as the chinchilla tried to approach Lobo. Predictably, the hyena skittered back, knowing only how to attack. Like him, his daemon was uncertain what to do in the absence of a mission.

The soldier moved on to another part of the exhibition, to another image of the man who wore his face standing next to the target. Steve Rogers. There was a stupid exultant grin on Steve’s face. Something good had happened that day. Bucky, standing at his shoulder, was smiling in a tired but happy way. The soldier tried to turn his lips upwards in imitation. It felt foreign.

Nearby there was an image of Steve kneeling on a forest floor, hand outstretched, giving the hyena the chin scratch he used to love so much, smiling at the daemon’s blissed out expression. Only people who were close touched each other's daemons.

Were they? Had they been? Was that why?

His head throbbed with sudden flashes of memories. The bright-eyed smiling faces sent a shaft of misery through him, the same feeling he had when he failed to complete a mission.  He blinked away the fog at the edges of his vision. The past few days had been hellish. His mouth felt cottony, his senses impaired. His body was malfunctioning, muscles quivering minutely, disobedient.

Lobo padded closer, pressing against his leg, whining softly. The soldier was surprised. He didn't know what to make of the hyena's newfound voice. Lobo had learned - should have learned - to be mute after being muzzled for so long. A weapon was supposed to be silent, deadly. The soldier remembered the hyena’s frustrated sounds, the maniac laugh that always made his handlers turn on him, to punish the transgression, to remind him that he was theirs. They’d taught the daemon not to vocalise, trained them both so that the hyena could take the touch of another without complaint. They had shut the daemon up on missions, taken him further and further away each time until the soldier barely felt the bond, until it was only a vague shadow of what was, when it felt as though there was an invisible thread between them, hooked to just under his heart, being pulled tighter and tighter, unbearably taut and yet not snapping. They had broken whatever was once sacred and the hyena had become nothing but an ugly tormented creature that shadowed him, dogged him, whenever he was let out of the cage.   When the soldier had come back for the daemon after he failed his mission, the hyena had cringed at first and refused to come out of the small cage, not wanting to disobey orders, terrified of being caught. 

Once, it had been different. Lobo had been tiny, his rounded ears huge compared to his face, and he had burrowed into the arms of a brash boy with a wide grin and a cowlick. The soldier is not sure how he knows this. But it's one of the few things that he knows.

Just as he has always known Arden, and Steve.

The soldier had accepted the he would see Arden every time he made a kill. He would look up from the body at his feet and she would be there with her cruelly sorrowful eyes, watching him silently from the trees, or hovering up above, circling his kill like a vulture.  But until just now, every time his mind had conjured up Steve, he'd shaken the image away - it was an inconsistent, unbelievable shadow. Sometimes this dream-figure was tiny and frighteningly frail, sometimes heroic and invulnerable.  But now he knew that Arden and Steve were not phantoms made up by his broken mind. They were real. There before him was Arden, perched on a gauntlet held aloft by Steve’s skinny arm, and there she was again, balanced on Steve’s broad shoulder, golden and glorious.

The soldier lingered before a photograph of a dark-haired woman with determined eyes and vibrant red lips. She touched something in him. He had known her. She stood very straight, her daemon, a red bushy-tailed squirrel with her same bright eyes, perched on her shoulder. The text said her name was Margaret Carter, but he knew that was not right. 

He was trying to retrieve her name from his uncooperative stuttering mind when someone brushed by him, making contact with his body. The soldier flinched back. 

“You have the same daemon as Bucky,” a boy with a freckled face marveled. His own daemon, a monkey, was sitting on his shoulder, clinging to his ginger hair. “That’s so cool.”

The soldier turned to face the boy, silent, and something about his face made the kid back away quickly, rejoining his family, glancing back at him nervously. The soldier was not surprised. He looked at the hyena. To the soldier, his daemon looked nightmarish. Ugly.  His sharp needle teeth were exposed, dangerous jaws parted in readiness to bite.

 

_Your daemon's so ugly, Barnes. So damn ugly. Hyenas are cowards. They're scavengers. They're thieves._

And then there was tiny Steve, golden eagle on his shoulder, punishing the taunters with doubled up fists swinging wildly. A wild punch and an outraged yell and then a breathless chase through familiar streets until they collapsed, laughing, and then their laughter faded and Steve put his hands on Bucky’s shoulders and said, fierce as only he could be, _Don't listen. He's beautiful. He's perfect. And you're the bravest person I know._

And he had wanted to ask, but what does it mean? What does it mean about me, that my daemon settled as this creature of darkness, this emblem of cowardice? And it was right that Steve would be granted the nobility of the golden eagle, he didn’t begrudge him that, but it hurt to have their difference confirmed. 

Even now, people were skirting them carefully. That might have something to do with the soldier’s unwashed body and his unkempt hair, but he thought his daemon might have something to do with it too. Everywhere he looked he could see people’s natures reflected in their daemons. 

That boy’s mischief-loving monkey.

A thin man with an alert twitchy look and a nervous meerkat hiding behind him.

A dangerous looking redhead with a lazy-eyed lynx.

 The soldier froze. He knew that woman.

He’d shot that woman.

 

The soldier slipped out of the building, every instinct alert for someone following, and was beginning to think he had gotten away clean when he heard familiar thudding footfalls, running after him, reaching out for him.

The soldier whirled around and Steve quickly raised his hands in a calming gesture of surrender, showing he had no weapons. His blue eyes were imploring. “Do you remember, Bucky? Please tell me you remember. You wouldn’t have come here if you didn’t remember.”  His voice broke roughly on the plea, shadows daubed under his eyes like he had not slept for days. He looked desperate, moving forward recklessly. “I knew it was you, even before I saw Lobo I knew it was you.” 

The soldier hesitated. “I remember,” he said, or tried to say, by the time Steve was close enough to touch, but before he could complete the sentence something sharp pricked at his neck and the world fell away from beneath him and he heard a laconic drawl from far away: “Better safe than sorry, Cap.”

 

 

The soldier remembered.

 _Glory be to God_ , a soft voice said.

 The soldier was lying on a bed in a darkened room. He was turned away, his back to someone who lay beside him. When had he ever slept like that? He was facing away because he didn't want Steve to see him crying. When had he ever cried? Lobo nuzzled his wet cheeks, curled up against his chest, still little enough to sleep burrowed against him.

 Steve knew, must have heard or sensed, because he sat up in the bed and said: _listen. I want you to listen._ And at first Bucky had thought Steve was praying, whispering _Glory be to God_ , but it was like no prayer Bucky had ever heard, the words all about mottled, dappled, mixed up things, and the poem said all of them were beautiful.

 Steve recited the lines of poetry solemnly; as only he could, reverent, and by the time he was finished, Bucky had recovered enough to snort his amusement and shove him, send him sprawling on the bed. "Punk," Bucky said, shaking his head, and Steve's cheeks were red with embarrassment, but he was sweetly pleased because he heard the note of fondness that Bucky didn't even try to disguise and they both knew that Bucky hadn't interrupted until the very end. And though he didn't ask for the poet's name, Bucky had memorized the line: _all things counter, original, spare, strange._

  

 

The soldier woke up in a windowless room, restrained in a hospital bed with requisite beeping equipment. His bionic arm had been depowered, a useless heavy weight hanging from his shoulder.  Opposite the bed was a one-way mirror.  Lobo was curled up in the corner, unhurt but afraid.

The soldier sat up and stared at the mirror where he was sure they were watching him. He didn’t have to wait long before the door opened and two men entered. The soldier moved restlessly, surprised by the intensity of his own anxiety. He did not know why he had been expecting Steve.

One of the men was rumpled and professorial. The soldier was good at assessing threats at a glance, and this man looked non-threatening, kindly even, as he stood there fiddling with his glasses. But the soldier suspected there was more to him: he was shadowed by a badger, an animal that could be vicious when provoked. The other man had familiar dark challenging eyes and something lodged in his chest, glowing with power. His daemon, a large African grey parrot, was perched on his shoulder, head cocked inquisitively. 

They all looked at each other for a long tense moment.

“Should we do introductions?”  The strangely familiar man asked, brightly, looking between them. He waved his hand. “That’s Bruce Banner. I wouldn’t anger him if I were you. And I’m Tony Stark, though I hope for the sake of my self-esteem you already knew that.” He paused, fixed the soldier with a suddenly piercing look. “Did you?” 

The soldier thought about this for a moment. There was something familiar about the word Stark. About those dark intelligent eyes. “I don’t know,” he rasped, finally.

The two exchanged a quick look. The rumpled man - Banner - cleared his throat. “How are you feeling?”

The soldier was familiar with that question. It was the same as “physical status report.”

“Functional,” he rasped. “Left arm unresponsive.” 

“Now I don’t want you to kill me for this confession, but that was my handiwork, Robocop,” Stark said. He was too confident as he moved closer, running his fingers against the useless arm, ignoring the soldier’s glare. “Shoddy work really. I could have done much better.” 

“Much better,” his parrot squawked, agreeing. The man’s quick smile revealed white teeth as he glanced at his daemon. “Why thank you.”

The soldier tensed as he realized that the badger was moving closer to where Lobo was hiding under the bed, snuffling at him, trying to make friends. The soldier knew what was coming but didn’t say anything. A split second was all it took for Lobo to lash out in panic. The badger quickly retreated from under the bed, blood staining her white blazed face.

Banner knelt to fuss over his daemon, murmuring to her softly, while the other man glared down at the soldier, irate parrot squawking her outrage. “What was that for? Ella was only trying to be friendly. And you should know that Bruce here was the only one willing to give you a chance, other than your boy Steve. The rest of us happen to think you’re crazy Tik-Tok and there’s no use pretending you’re an innocent Roderick. I had to be persuaded to let you in my tower, I’ll have you know, and…”

The soldier wasn’t sure what the man was saying, but he knew anger very well.

“I can withstand much punishment,” the soldier told him, interrupting his flow. 

The man stared at him with his mouth hanging open. It was interesting seeing him rendered speechless.  “Uh.” He backed away quickly; the arrogant look was gone, replaced by something the soldier could not read. “Banner! You deal with this. Astro-boy here thinks I’m a sadist.”

The doctor - Banner - placed a steadying hand on the suddenly panicked man’s shoulder.

“Not your fault, Tony,” he said.

 “Tell that to Steve,” the man called Tony replied.

“Tell me what?” Steve asked, as he stepped into the room. His hair was a messy halo of gold around his sleep-flushed face. “Why didn’t you wake me?” 

The soldier saw that Steve looked less tired and something in him approved. He did not try to explain it.

“You hadn’t slept through the night for like two weeks,” Tony replied. “And I’m the genius coffee junkie insomniac inventor, not you. Not that I’m jealous of Pepper fussing over you or anything, but a sleep-deprived Captain America is just wrong.”

Steve, ignoring all his, had stepped toward the bed in two strides. “Bucky?”

 The soldier was immediately jerked out of his exploration of what he felt about Steve. At the moment, he just felt frustrated, like when a target had gotten away. “I am not Bucky.”

 Steve looked like someone had kicked him. 

The soldier shifted, making the restraints creak. “I knew you.” 

Steve’s eyes went soft and bright. “Yes,” he said, hoarsely. “You knew me. We were - we are best friends. To the end of the line.” 

“Ah, jeez,” Stark muttered. “Someone pass the sick bucket.”

 

 

The red-head came to visit that first night. She was alone, her lynx pacing agitatedly around her, and she had a familiar look on her face that meant she needed to unwind and he was there to take what she wanted to give. Rumlow used to need that sometimes too, when missions went wrong, take it out on someone who could take it. The soldier was surprised when she spoke instead of lashing out at him.

“I need to know what you know,” she said.

 He tilted his head up towards her. “What I know,” he echoed, blankly. Rumlow would have smacked him. 

“Do you remember me?” She was brittle. She could shatter into a thousand pieces. 

“I shot you,” he said, careful, flexing his one working arm. He could snap the restraints, but he wouldn’t. Not yet.

“You did.”

“More than once?” he hesitated, knew asking was wrong, but the answer was there when he saw her face. 

She sucked in a breath and pushed it out slow. “Yes.”

“I hurt you and you want to hurt me,” he summarized.

“You hurt _Steve_ ,” she corrected. “You were going to kill him.” 

“He’s my mission.” She narrowed her eyes at this. She had heard what she had expected to hear and it did not please her. “He was my mission,” the soldier corrected after a moment. He felt fear at her sudden stillness, the calculating coldness of her eyes. Her lynx lowered its head threateningly.

“What are you doing?”  Steve said, sharply. He was standing in the doorway, appearing suddenly. _Steve to the rescue._ The thought that almost made the soldier smile came from something he hadn’t known was inside him, some trace of the stubborn boy with the outthrust chin. 

The red-head looked up at Steve, the dangerous darkness still alive in her. She had known death all her life, the soldier thought, and saw a little girl with empty eyes.

“Natasha. Back away.”

“He almost killed you, Steve. He just told me you’re his mission.”

 “He saved me.”

“He’s a threat. You don’t know him like this.”

 When she came too close to Steve the soldier snapped the restraints. He did not see Natasha draw the gun but it was suddenly in her hand. He saw Steve dive for her, struggle with her, and he saw her fight back, anger lending force to her first punch, sending Steve staggering back. He rushed forward, shouldering Steve back behind him, driving Natasha against the wall, hand clasped around her throat. The lynx launched itself at the hyena, as the woman choked, kicking feebly, her every breath a struggle. Arden flew at the soldier’s daemon, shrieking angrily, wings beating and talons tearing exposed skin.

“Let her go!” Steve commanded. “Now!”

It took a few seconds for the order to penetrate. The soldier blinked and stepped back, only to find that Steve had moved to obstruct his way, protecting the woman, ready to attack.

“Back off. I don’t want to hurt you,” Steve warned, and there was ice in his blue eyes. That familiar coldness sent something painful twisting through the soldier because he’d seen the same look on the faces of men who would do whatever it took to get their way, and that implacable look did not belong between them.

The soldier backed away. He watched Steve turn to Natasha, who was massaging her neck, wincing. “So this time he saved you and tried to kill me,” she rasped. “Are we counting that as a step forward or a step back?” 

“Nat,” Steve said, softly, pained.

“Don’t “Nat” me,” she said. “Your “Bucky” almost killed me.”

The soldier wanted to protest but stayed quiet. He was acutely aware that his left arm was unresponsive. He watched them warily. He knew that he had done something wrong.

Arden and the lynx were hovering, looking at the hyena with threat in their eyes until the hyena slunk forward and lay down abjectly before them and the soldier lowered himself stiffly to kneel. He needed to show these people he knew how to be a good asset.

Steve drew in a sharp breath and stared at him. “What…?” 

Natasha touched the soldier, fingers under his chin urging him to raise his head so he was looking up at her. The lynx eyed him with an unnervingly steady gaze. “I don’t usually let people who try to kill me live,” Natasha told him, evenly. “But since you thought you were protecting Steve, I’ll make an exception.”

 He stared up at her, wordless, waiting for the blessing of punishment that meant all was forgiven.

“What does he want?” Steve asked. “Why is he looking at you like that?”

The soldier didn’t know how he was looking at the woman but he quickly made his face perfectly blank. It didn’t seem to make Steve any happier.

Natasha sighed. “He is expecting punishment,” she said. “That’s what happens when you make a mistake.”

Steve’s jaw tightened ominously, and the soldier thought _this is familiar._ His eyes had gone back to their icy, angry blue. The soldier could not help but flinch back when Steve turned to him, forcing him to his feet. Steven stopped and looked at him as fierce and bright and golden as Arden. “No one is going to punish you. Understand?”

The soldier nodded. He understood. He would not be allowed the serenity of knowing his wrongs had been wiped clean. He had too many wrongs to atone for with his body. But Steve was still radiating rage, like he needed to hurt something. His fists were still curled in the soldier’s stolen shirt, and there was something achingly familiar about standing so close to him, and something wrong about looking up at him instead of down, and something wrong about looking up at that frighteningly cold gaze.

 The soldier wanted Steve to come back to him. He ransacked his broken mind for something to offer to thaw the bite of ice in Captain America’s blue eyes.

“Glory be to God,” the soldier whispered.

Steve drew in a sharp breath, and the heavy mantle of rage dropped from his shoulders. The ice in his blue eyes melted and the soldier felt the strange wetness in his eyes that sometimes happened when there was pain, seeping down his face.

“He’s crying,” Natasha said, with wonder. “The Winter Soldier is crying.”

 

 

The soldier watched Steve confer with Banner in the corner. Banner was being comforting, placing a hand on Steve’s shoulder briefly. Arden fluttered away from her perch, trying again to approach Lobo. She hadn’t made much headway. The hyena backed away, cornering himself. 

“You can’t expect a miracle,” Banner said, watching the daemons.  

“I know that,” Steve said.  “But he remembers, Bruce. He remembered that poem from when we were kids.”

The soldier could tell that what had happened during the night worried them. Their concern was understandable – after all, they would want to know how useful he could be as a weapon, and he had shown he could not be trusted, not yet at least.

These people wanted to fix him. This was familiar. But they behaved different, not like the scientists who had been angry whenever he did something wrong, and taken their anger out on him for being a less than perfect weapon. The soldier only knew he had done something wrong when Steve looked at him with that strange sad expression.

He saw that look again when Steve had brought him food. The soldier lingered over everything, eating slowly, luxuriating in the food after weeks of rough living, and then glanced up to find Steve looking sad and drawn into himself, somehow smaller. When Steve saw that he had noticed, he mumbled something incomprehensible and left the room hurriedly, as though forcing himself to leave.

The soldier could not understand this sadness, could not bring it together in his mind with the urgency to fix him and make him the best killing machine he could be. He felt like he was missing something important, something that would make all of this make sense.

Banner was gazing at him when he turned his attention back to the here and now. He did not jerk his eyes away as some people did when the soldier spotted them looking. “Steve has been looking for you ever since you saved him,” he said, quietly. “He wants to help you.”

  _Saved him._ The soldier swallowed against the wrongness of that. Mission. Target. Assassinate. He must have done something, made some sound, because Banner was suddenly hovering near him, murmuring something. “Hey, hey…calm down.” The soldier clenched his teeth and shook his head, angered to have someone witnessing his malfunctioning.

“Gerard Manley Hopkins,” Banner said, out of nowhere, sitting down in a chair by the bed. The soldier frowned, confused.  “The man who wrote ‘Glory be to God for dappled things.’ He is called Gerard Hopkins. He was a Jesuit priest.” 

The soldier listened to Banner tell the story of Gerard Manley Hopkins, and understood why an undersized golden-haired boy had found his words and given the gift of them to his friend whose daemon was a spotted ugly creature of darkness.

“You made him really happy by remembering the poem. Do you remember any more of it?”

 The soldier stared. He was required to remember reams of code, numbers, co-ordinates, all kinds of personal details. Did this Banner think to test him?

“It’s not a test,” Banner said, reading his mind. “You don’t have to tell me.”

The soldier glanced at the badger, saw the scratch visible still across the white blaze of her face, the scratch that his daemon had made, an unprovoked attack coming out of cringing fear: his cowardly daemon hyena, misshaped and mottled. 

 _All things counter, original, spare, strange._  

The soldier wasn’t sure if he thought or spoke the words, but when he glanced up Banner smiled at him gently and moved away, and the soldier felt confused but somehow warmed inside.

 

  

The soldier had not been expecting this. They had told him that someone would be coming to talk to him. The soldier had translated that as _interrogation_ , and he knew he had gotten that part right. But he had not been expecting this unimpressive middle-aged specimen who had introduced himself pleasantly as Agent Coulson.

He looked so ordinary. His daemon was a pigeon. 

But the archer and Natasha who had followed the suit into the monitoring room were flanking him like bodyguards – Natasha’s lynx lying relaxed nearby, the archer’s chameleon strolling along next to the pigeon. The soldier could tell from their protective stance that they would kill to protect this Agent Coulson.

Steve looked conflicted, standing as he would before a commanding officer but acting suspicious and belligerent.  “What are you going to do?” he asked, hovering protectively near where the soldier was sitting, waiting to be interrogated.   

“It’s not up to me,” Coulson said, calmly. His eyes flicked up and down the soldier analytically, taking in the preternatural silence and stillness that the soldier knew normally discomfited civilians. This man did not seem discomfited, not even at the lack of restraints, although one eyebrow rose, asking a question that might as well have been spoken.

“He broke the restraints. He could have attacked any of us if he wanted,” Steve said. 

“He attacked Natasha,” Coulson said. Nothing about him changed, but suddenly the soldier could taste the tension in the air. This man did not trust him and did not like him.   

Steve closed his eyes briefly, dropping his head in acknowledgement.

 “Barton told me,” Coulson said, glancing at the archer. “Natasha wouldn’t say.”

Barton had his bow in one hand, ready to draw at any second, the soldier realized. “Tasha’s neck is black and blue,” Barton said, voice flat.

The soldier looked at him and thought that the archer wouldn’t mind hurting him very badly. 

Steve opened his mouth and then closed it again. He’d been about to justify the attack; the soldier realized, and then had stopped himself.

Natasha, who was leaning casually against the wall, huffed. “I told Coulson that the soldier tried to kill me to protect you,” she said, drily. “So it’s one strike against him but one for him I guess. He proved you mean something to him.”

Steve relaxed minutely at this. “I’m not blind. This is dangerous. I know that. But I need some time with him,” he said, carefully not begging. He gave the soldier a quick glance that said as clear as words he was sorry to be speaking about him, for him. The soldier understood. He tipped his head, and Steve went on, “He remembers me. I’m sure I can help him. After what was done to him, after everything he’s been through...”  

Coulson pursed his lips.  “I told you. That’s not my decision. Fury wants to see him and make up his own mind.”

“You’re not taking him from here,” Steve said, snapping back from persuasive reasoning to challenge, squaring his shoulders, standing tall. “I won’t let you.”

The soldier wanted to pull him down. He imagined that the man he used to be, the man called Bucky, would have rolled his eyes.

“I told them you would say that,” Coulson said, calm still. “Fury said he’s willing to come to the mountain if he must.” He glanced at his watch. “He should be here…right about now.”

 He finished his words with a tiny barely perceptible smile. There was just enough time for everyone to stiffen and stand straighter before a large imposing man entered the room in a swirl of black leather. A jaguar followed him.

The soldier did not need to see the daemon to know this was a dangerous man.

 No one stirred as the man stalked forward until he was standing close enough to the soldier to touch him. The soldier looked up to find himself the focus of intense scrutiny. The man’s single eye was like a searing brand. The man they wanted him to be, the man he had been, would have squirmed under that gaze like a child caught stealing candy.  The soldier merely gazed back and waited for his fate.

“So this is him,” Fury said. He did not sound admiring.

The soldier waited, hiding the stirrings of anxiety. It seemed that this was the man in charge. He hoped he would deem him to be useful.

Fury raised a sardonic brow, his eye-patch shifting. “Does he even talk? Or does he just stare catatonically?”

“He talks,” Steve said, almost defensively. “Just not a lot.”

 “He looks pathetic,” Fury said. “Difficult to believe he’s the legendary Winter Soldier.”

The insult touched some deep down need to respond. The soldier stood, watched everyone, even Steve, shift into fighting stance. The jaguar growled, tail twitching.

“You trying to kill me again?” Fury asked. “I can promise you, you’ll find it more difficult this time.”

“Sir,” the soldier said.

Fury stared at him for a moment. The soldier was clasping the wrist of his dead left arm with his right. He was in the correct position, signaling with all he had that he was an obedient and valuable weapon, ready, almost looking forward to blindly obeying. But when the command came, he baulked.

“All right then. Show me what you can do,” Fury said. “Take Steve down.”  

There was no sound in the room. The soldier did not move a muscle. “No,” he said, blankly.

He remembered a perfect face marred with blood. Remembered his target falling into the river.

“No,” he said again, more sure. He was malfunctioning again, exposing his own weakness, and he did not even care. “I won’t hurt Steve.” 

There was a reaction like a ripple of surprise through the room. The soldier kept his eyes firmly on the wall. When Fury took a step forward, he tensed, expecting something painful, as his daemon stalked forward, pinning Lobo down in the corner. The man was towering over him silently.

“That was the right answer, soldier,” Fury said, after a pause that stretched too long.

The soldier dared to glance around the room.  They seemed to be pleased, no one more than Steve, whose eyes were resting on him like a benediction, soft and gentle and warm.

  _To the end of the line._

Barton pushed himself from the wall. “I wouldn’t mind sparring with the legend,” he drawled.

“Stand down, Barton,” Coulson barked but Fury had already given a barely perceptible nod.

The soldier moved mechanically into action. Barton came at him with determination, wanted to hurt him for what he had done to Natasha, and there was savage joy in meeting his blows, in finally knowing what he was meant to do, stepping into the fluidity of fighting with someone who knew what he was doing. But this was a demonstration of skill, not a sparring match, and so the soldier did not prolong the fight, pinning the archer on the floor in minutes despite his dead arm.

“Let him up,” Fury said.

The soldier stood back. The chameleon scampered onto Barton’s back as he stood up, rubbing his no doubt aching shoulder, giving the soldier a reassessing look and a crooked, reluctant smile. “You’re gonna have to teach me that trick sometime, Winter.”

Natasha stalked forward and pulled Barton back towards her. “You’re an idiot,” she griped. She glared at the soldier over his head. The lynx was swishing his tail and hissing. The soldier looked away. 

“You’ve killed many people,” Fury said.

“Yes,” the soldier said. 

“Many innocent people.”

 “Yes.”

Fury petted his jaguar absently. Lobo, seeming jealous of the comforting happening around them, pressed against the soldier’s legs. The soldier did not touch him. Ugly mangy cowardly creature. 

“What do you think we should do with you?” Fury asked, finally.

 The soldier blinked. A weapon was not asked how it should be used.

“Use me,” he said, as though the answer was self-evident. 

“Should you not be punished for your crimes?” 

“Yes,” the soldier agreed, following the suggestion in the leading question. He could withstand punishment, he knew. As long as he did not have to leave the side of the man who had become the center of his universe.

“No,” Steve snapped, bristling with anger. “They used him for seventy years. That was punishment enough. I will not let you hurt him.”

 The soldier looked at him blankly. How could he be used if he was not hurt? They would have to do tests, to make him clean and new, to wipe him after each mission. And that hurt. 

“We’ll do what we have to do, Captain,” Fury said, suddenly seeming weary. “As he is now, he seems manageable enough. Maybe his devotion to you will keep him that way. When and if that changes however, I’ll not hesitate to put him down.” 

“Put him down?” Steve said, eyes narrowed, voice shaking with emotion. “You talk as if he’s an animal.” 

“I am a weapon,” the soldier said. It was a familiar phrase. He had repeated those words over and over as his body was played like an instrument finely tuned for pain, had stuttered the syllables until they felt alien and meaningless and stamped into his brain.

Weapon. Not human.

Fury’s gaze settled back on him and the soldier waited for the question, his head tilted.

“Do you want to stay here?" 

“He is staying here,” Steve interrupted. 

“What do you want?” Fury repeated, looking directly at the soldier.

The soldier shook his head. That question was wrong. He should not answer it. But Fury was waiting, did not seem uncomfortable with the long stretch of silence that followed his question. 

“Weapons don’t want,” the soldier said finally.

Steve’s mouth tightened unhappily – wrong answer, the soldier’s mind warned him - but Fury gave a brief nod of acceptance.  “What should we call you?”

The soldier hesitated. “I am not Bucky.”

Steve looked like he was hurting. “I won’t call you that any more,” he promised. 

“But I am not…Asset. Or Soldier,” the soldier said. “Not anymore.” He hesitated, unsure if this would be wrong, but needing to say it anyway. “My name is James,” he said, carefully. “James Buchanan Barnes.”

Agent Coulson was the only one who did not blink.

 

 

When the people from SHIELD had left, Stark offered to fix his arm for him, and no one raised any objections. The soldier who was now James felt his arm come back online with relief, but when he saw their watchful looks he knew that they would not trust him, not yet. They were not stupid. That was good.

“That should do it,” Stark said, retreating from where he had stood as he tinkered with the arm. He was watching him too intently for it to be just interest in his arm, although James suspected he would not have minded removing the arm and carrying it off to his workshop. 

Stark was very suspicious of him, yet he had helped him. The soldier could not understand the logic of that. 

“Test it out then,” Stark said, impatiently. “Need to see if it’s all working okay.”

James flexed his metal fingers, gripped them and uncurled them, rotated his wrist. 

Stark’s grey parrot squawked. “Okay, okay.”

“Not asking you, poppet,” Stark said, but petted the parrot’s feathers with a grimy hand.

“This arm,” James said. “I’ve killed with it.”

Stark looked at him, his head tilted. “Hmm. You know I used to make bombs?”

 There was a brief silent awkwardness, until James recalled that there was a phrase for moments like this and forced it out stiffly and ungracefully. “Thank you.”

Steve looked proud of him, but Stark blanched. “Oh, no, don’t do that,” he said, seeming taken aback, “I don’t do social nicieties, Tik-Tok, you’ve gotta know that about me.” He watched as James went through a series of exercises to test the arm’s range of motion. “Little stiff at the elbow. Needs some actual elbow grease.” He seemed amused by his own wit. 

James wanted to test out a smile, but he knew that it would only come out as a grimace.

 

 

James followed Steve down to his floor, emerging from the talking elevator into a bright apartment. He had been told that he would be allowed to go anywhere on the floor he would be sharing with Steve, but everything he did was being monitored by the AI called Jarvis, who would not allow him out of this floor without supervision.  The soldier was used to being monitored. He expected nothing less, now that he was trying to be James. He did not intend to try to escape.

He would not be away from Steve. He followed him closely, so closely that Steve noticed, asked if there was anything wrong. “I have to be near you,” the soldier had said, awkward and confused by this irrational need. But Steve had stared and then smiled at him. James was not sure he understood this man he had once known.

 Every so often, Steve would look at him like he wanted to touch him, but withdrew before he did.

The first thing Steve had done was shown him his room. It was a normal room. There was a bed. Even a window. There was no chair for him to be made clean and new and no chamber for the deep sleep of ice.  

“Are you sure?” James asked, dubiously.

Steve gave him that sad look again. “Yes. Yes I’m sure.”

 

 

The soldier woke up curled protectively around nothing. He was not cold. His mind was not blank. He was not the soldier. He remembered yesterday. He catalogued what he knew in his disordered mind. 

 _My name is James Buchanan Barnes._  

The sun was casting orange light across the wall. It was late afternoon outside. Lobo was stretching lazily at the foot of the bed, and Arden was watching him, perched on a bookshelf. Steve was sitting in an incongruous wicker chair by the bed, elbows on knees, leaning forward.

“You’ve been asleep for two days,” Steve said. 

There was an open sketchbook on his lap. James flicked his eyes down to the page and Steve picked it up quickly, fumbling with it, tilting it up so it was hidden against his chest. There was the faintest pink flush in his cheeks.

 “Can I see?” James asked. He cleared his throat, disturbed by the disused rasp of his own voice, but kept his eyes on Steve. This was a familiar question. He’d asked it before. 

Steve hesitated, and then gave a small huff of laughter. “Here,” he said, handing it over. James took it carefully. The pencil lines were economical yet accurate, capturing the lines of James’ face – but it was a younger face, restful in sleep, and curled protectively around a skinny blonde boy. Arden was perched on the headboard, Lobo asleep at their feet.  

“Did this happen?” James asked, fingers hovering over the lines, not touching. He did not wanting to smudge the precision of the lines, the remembered fragile moment.

 “When I was sick,” Steve said. “You used to sleep next to me.” He was quiet for a moment. “You insisted on it, said you wanted to be there in case I had an asthma attack.” He tilted his head, smiled somewhat sadly. “You were so devoted in taking care of me. It made me angry sometimes.”

“Why?” James asked.

 “Because I thought you were doing it out of obligation, and because I was jealous of you. I resented you being strong and healthy. So good with the ladies.”

James frowned. He looked down at the picture, at the flesh and blood arm stretched over bony shoulders, the chin resting on the blonde head. “I wasn’t…good with the ladies,” he said, slowly. He remembered confusion hidden beneath bravado.

“They loved you,” Steve said, smiling softly. “And I wanted so much to be like you. Sometimes I think about what you said that last night…about what might have been if I didn’t believe I had something to prove...”

But James knew that the turn his own story had taken had its seed in the perversion in him. Hydra had told him. He had tried to rise above what his nature demanded of him, and they had placed him back where he belonged. James tried to form this thought into coherent words. “They chose him because they knew,” he said. “Bucky needed orders.”

Steve brought his hands to either side of James’ face and held him there. Steve’s eyes were intense, drawing him into their depths. “No. I won’t let you blame my friend. He didn’t choose this. No one would choose this.”

 

 

James spent the next few days looking out of the window of the living room and carefully not thinking. When it was dark outside, he looked at a thick book full of the same photographs that had been in the exhibition. Sometimes, Steve stayed with him and talked to him until his voice went hoarse deep into the night. James liked the sound of Steve’s voice. He didn’t like it when he stopped talking, when his eyelids drooped and his head nodded on his chest and there was a vast empty silence. He felt afraid when Arden’s eyes hooded and there was no one watching in case the soldier woke. He watched Steve sleeping and felt something hurt inside his chest. It didn’t go away even when Steve started, waking suddenly, and it only hurt more when Steve smiled at him and the smile clashed with the strange sadness in his eyes. 

Steve tried to talk to him about the future, but that was not part of carefully not thinking. James was still the soldier inside and the soldier was a weapon who couldn’t think about the future because that meant thinking about the past.

James knew that Steve wanted him to be something other than a weapon, but he was still what he had been made to be. The only reason he was here and not out there doing Hydra’s bidding was that when Steve had fallen, something had happened. It had felt like a hook caught between his ribs, yanking him forward, telling him to follow. All he had wanted was to make sure that his target was alive. And then he had not wanted to return.

He remembered falling himself. He remembered that he had always had this nightmare.

“Did I fall?” he asked. His voice felt like it was coming from far away.

Steve’s eyes flew up, the book he had been reading falling to his lap. “What?”

“You fell into the river. I dream about falling into cold. Did I fall?”

 Steve swallowed. “Yes. You fell, a long way, and it was…it was a long time ago. I thought you were dead. I would have come for you otherwise. I promise you that.”

“You came for me before,” James said. “You were different. Stronger.”

Steve looked anguished. “I’m so sorry, Buck.”

James opened his mouth to say “I’m not Bucky,” then closed it and looked away from the distress on Steve’s face, turning to gaze out of the window at the dense darkness.

 

 

 

That night he woke up believing that both his arms were metal. He found himself holding a knife and stabbing into his flesh arm and he felt good when hot iron blood ran out, even though Lobo was howling like someone had died. 

His arm was real. He was real.  

 When Steve found them he had to wrestle him to get to the knife and Arden stretched out her wings, fluttering around them in panic. “Stop, Bucky. Stop.” Steve squeezed his wrist hard enough that the knife dropped and clattered on the kitchen floor.

“Pick on someone your own size, Stevie,” James said, choking on a laugh, because everything seemed funny, until he saw how Steve looked, his eyes too big and his skin bloodless and his lips tight. “I’m sorry,” James said then. “I’m sorry.”

Steve tried to calm Lobo without touching him but the hyena retreated to a corner and did the panic giggle that had made the trainers beat him.  “Bucky,” Steve said, breathing in and speaking slow. “I’m not mad.”

 James listened until the words trickled into him, reassuring, like the slow trickle of blood down his arm.  The soldier who was edging into his mind at the sight of blood knew that the injury was just deep enough to cover over the nightmare of peeling away flesh to find a machine, to find himself incased in metal from the inside. 

“It’s going to be okay,” Steve kept promising. “Bruce will be here soon.” He cleaned up the blood with hands that were too capable looking to be shaking, hands that should not tremble, that should only be stained with ink and charcoal and not ever blood. 

The soldier who became James did not object to being called by the scared boy’s name. He reached out to his daemon, not quite touching him, just enough for the spiral of panic to slow, become an undercurrent, like the pain.

 “Tell me,” James said. “Tell me this is real.”

 “You’re not a weapon,” Steve said, which wasn’t what James wanted, but he said it with the authority and the conviction that would begin to undo the litany. _Not human. Weapon. Human. Not weapon._

Lobo stopped his whining, pressing close to James, sniffing at the blood on his arm. James brushed bionic fingers through the hyena’s short mangy coat, over the blackish specks that looked like burns, up the neck to the crest. Lobo melted under the tentative gentle touch.

“How long has it been since you touched him?” Steve whispered.

 James didn’t want to answer that. He shook his head. “What…what comes after rose-moles?”

And of course Steve knew, drew a soft breath and the words poured out with their dancing syllables. “All in stipple upon trout that swim. Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings…”

Banner came down while Steve was still reciting the poem.

“Don’t stop?” James asked and it made Steve smile at him and carry on saying the words while Banner cleaned up the injury with hands that moved slowly and signaled each movement.

 “He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change: Praise him.” Steve spoke the ending quiet and solemn and reverent. It was like they were little again, in the darkness of that room when Bucky could not believe how bright this little skinny blonde boy shone.

“Beauty is past change,” James echoed quietly, looking at Steve with too much of what he felt on the inside showing.  

Banner smiled a tiny bit. “I think you’re blaspheming there,” he murmured.

 James frowned at him. Now Steve was pink in the face. Diplomatically, Banner redirected his attention. “You’ll need a few stitches, that’s quite a big gash.”

The soldier wasn’t quite sure why he was being informed – in his experience the medics did what they had to do without feeling the need to narrate their every action. This doctor kept up a constant even flow of words, _now I’m going to do this and that._ James watched and felt like he was not inside his own body, but somewhere floating above the scene. The familiar pull and tug of the thread bringing the edges of torn apart flesh together, hiding the rawness beneath, was one more sign that he was not all weapon. No one would make a weapon of vulnerable flesh.

“Why?” Steve asked, later, not accusing but sad. “Why did you do it?”

“My arms were metal,” said James, distantly, “Both of them were metal.” He knew that Steve had taken away the knives. Good idea, he thought, though for other reasons. 

Steve swallowed. “Next time, tell me. Talk to me.” 

“I’ll try,” James said. He couldn’t promise, and Steve didn’t ask him.

 

  

It had been a while since they had left the apartment. Every time Steve tried to get him to come with him, James just shook his head. The outside was too much when he was barely able to control himself within these walls that had become familiar. But each time he said no he regretted it when he saw the light die out of Steve’s eyes.

“I can’t do this alone,” Steve confessed uncertainly in the darkness, voice smaller than it should be now he was as invincible as he was. “I…we need help.”

 “I remembered that last night,” James offered into the thick silence, because saying he remembered made Steve happy, even though he wasn’t sure if he remembered or if it was the photographs and the history books and what Steve had told him that filled his mind. “When I told you we were going to the future.”

 Steve smiled, but it was bleak and strained. “You were more right than either of us could ever have known,” he said.

 James looked down at the photograph of the woman labeled Margaret Carter. Steve had told him her name was, is, Peggy. She was still alive. “Can we go see her?” he asked, before he knew he was going to ask.

 Steve’s eyes widened in surprise and just like that, the bleakness went away. “Of course, Buck. I mean, James. Of course we can.”

 

 

James remembered Peggy as the poised woman in red who had walked into that bar and enchanted him and enraptured Steve. He remembered his own awkwardness while they only had eyes for each other, exchanging the cautious promises lovers made during war. Her lethal elegance knew no coyness. They would have had a great and lasting passion. He remembered the flaring of jealousy, an all too human resentment at being invisible.

 “Did I really say I was turning into you?” James asked as they walked through the nursing home, Lobo trotting behind them, Arden on Steve's shoulder. They had been escorted here, and there were agents following them, just waiting for James to make a mistake, to allow the soldier out.

 “I didn’t mind,” Steve said, soothing Arden. She seemed disturbed by the faint wraiths of daemons around them, the insubstantial companions of the elderly, the forgotten. There was a wizened chimp curled up in the lap of an equally wizened old woman, and she was rocking back and forth and stroking his knobbly back. 

Lobo skittered away from them, running to catch up. 

“You should have minded,” James said. The green boy he had been must have been a blundering fool.  

Peggy’s eyes were still bright, her squirrel daemon still vital and energetic. Propped up in bed, she retained the grace she had then in her bearing. “Hello boys,” she said, and her voice was warm without the tart astringency of constantly having to prove herself.

Steve leaned forward to brush a kiss to her hollowed cheek, and she reached up to touch Arden’s feathers gently in greeting. “This really isn’t fair,” Peggy said, amused, daring to tease, curling a wispy grey lock back behind an ear. Her daemon, sitting on the bedside table amidst too many medicine bottles, chattered at them and then scampered to her too bony shoulder, looking at Lobo with intent eyes. 

“Bucky,” she said softly, tilting her head and examining him. “Come sit by me.”

Steve was going to open his mouth, was going to inform her that he was not Bucky anymore, but James shook his head very slightly. As he sat down in the chair at her side, Lobo padded nearer and she got a good look at both of them and saw something that did not please her and her brave smile faltered. “Steve is worried about you.” 

James inclined his head. “I’m doing alright, for what I am.”

 Her pale mouth drew together in a familiar tight line, though back then it had been a slash of vibrant red. “You still think you’re what they made you, don’t you?”

 “Look,” James said, bluntly, thrusting his bionic arm into her line of sight. She stared down at it with furrowed brows, and then took his hand gently in both her own, holding it as though it was real, human. James stared at the brown spots freckling her thin old skin, contrasting the inhuman metal with the frailty of old age.  _Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)._

“I’ll tell you what I told Steve,” Peggy said softly, stroking his metal hand. “None of us can go back. No matter how much you want to turn around and walk back to where things were easier, simpler, cleaner, you are where you are in life, and you can only look to the future. Face that way. Don’t look behind you.”

 

The next morning, James woke up to an empty apartment. He wandered into the kitchen and stood before the coffee maker and realized he did not know how to use it. Steve took care of the coffee. And breakfast. And everything else. James was still standing there helplessly when he heard voices from down the hall. Lobo looked at him in alarm and he backed up, wishing Steve had forgotten at least one of the knives.

 Steve came into the kitchen, followed by someone James did not know at first glance. When he realized who it was, James’ hands twitched, needing a weapon. He’d attacked this man. Made him fall as he had once fallen.   “Hello James,” the man said, without smiling.

“Hello,” James echoed, cautiously. Lobo didn’t move, pressing against his legs.

Steve introduced them as though they hadn’t already met when they were trying to kill each other. “James, this is my friend, Sam Wilson. And his daemon, Redwing.” James noticed that Arden and Redwing were happy to see each other. They looked perfect together, a matched pair. Not like Arden and Lobo.

Steve smiled at them, and started to make breakfast. Over the domestic bustle and the sound of the coffee maker, Sam slid closer to him. “No hard feelings?”  

James eyed him. “I broke your wing. Made you fall.”

“I got it fixed,” Sam said, shrugging. “Redwing got a shock, but she’s recovered now.”

“Sorry,” James said, more abrupt than he meant to be.

Sam accepted the apology more graciously than it was given with a let-bygones-be-bygones nod. “So. How are things going?” he asked, seeming genuinely curious. “Fitting in alright at Superhero Central?”

James tilted his head. “Did he ask you for help?”

 “Before he found you. I told him you might not be the kind of guy you save,” Sam said, disarmingly honest.

 “I’m not,” James muttered.

 “The man I'd imagined you to be wouldn't have said that,” Sam said. He moved too suddenly, and James stepped back before he realised that Sam had been about to touch him on the shoulder, a companionable, inoffensive touch. 

"Don't be too hard on yourself," Sam said, gently, withdrawing his arm after a moment’s pause. "Let it take however long it takes." 

 

  

When Steve told him the team wanted to meet him properly a few days later, James said okay and pretended he didn’t see Steve’s surprise.

“Are you alright to do this?” Steve asked, with that worried crinkle between his brows. “We don’t have to.”  They were in the elevator, heading to the common floor. It was too late to change his mind, so James simply nodded again. 

There was laughter and noise and people everywhere when they emerged. They were all people he had met before, but they were intimidating all at once. And in addition, there was Thor, the man who Steve had explained was called the god of thunder but was not really a god but an alien. He didn’t have a daemon. James found himself fascinated by how the man moved around so easily without this extension of himself. His own daemon was a cringing silent shadow, the spirit beaten out of him long ago, but at least he had one.

Thor was the only one who touched James, offering his huge hand to shake as he boomed out that he was happy to see the Captain’s old friend. James shook hands mutely.

 “You find it strange that I have no daemon, James Buchanan Barnes?” Thor asked.

James startled, then nodded very slightly.

“My lady Jane found it very strange too. Her companion is quite an affectionate creature which I believe you call a mouse-deer. It is such a little thing to bear the name of two animals, no more than this big,” Thor said, gesturing. He glanced at Lobo. “He is quite unusual looking,” he said, ruminatively, without malice. “His legs seem too short, do they not?”

 James shrugged.

“Hyenas have an amazing bite-force, you know,” Steve said, blandly, appearing at his shoulder.

 Thor’s brows arched up. “Indeed.” 

They sat around the dinner table and commented loudly about the food, talked over each other, allowing him to watch on the sidelines. James felt his senses stretched thin. He wanted to run back, wanted to hide, but he relaxed a little when he saw that no one expected him to say anything. He was quick enough to catch a few scrutinizing glances, all followed by a pasted on disarming smile. He wasn’t an idiot – he knew that the smiles were fake. They didn’t know him. But they trusted Steve. He could feel their respect for him; even underneath the ribbing and teasing they subjected him to throughout the meal.

“What’s this I hear about the fearsome assassin reciting a flowery poem?” Stark asked. “Taught to him by the epitome of all things manly, no less.”

“I liked the words,” Steve said defensively. “And I didn’t want Buck…I didn’t want him to be ashamed of his daemon.”  He glanced at Lobo. “They used to bully me for being scrawny, and you for having a hyena for a daemon. They used to say Lobo was…”  

“Ugly,” James rasped. “Coward.” 

“You remember,” Steve said, softly.  

“But he isn’t,” that was Natasha. “He’s not ugly at all,” she said, her lynx was coming closer to Lobo, who was standing up now, ready to defend himself, but the lynx stopped short and only snuffled at the air, ears pricked and eyes watchful but friendly. “Clint?” she said.

“His eyes are bright as buttons,” Barton said. “He’s kinda cute.”

 James’ hair hung in his face. His own eyes were dead, not bright at all.

“I’ve always thought hyenas are underestimated,” Banner said. “They have a very complex social system, and they’re highly intelligent.”

James looked up at him through strands of hair, shifting his eyes to Tony when he started talking too. “They’re matriarchal, aren’t they? Pep will tell you right there is a sure sign they have their heads screwed on right.” Tony slid his eyes to James, suddenly lit with interest. “Say. Does that mean Robocop here is into kinky dominatrix stuff? ‘Cause that would be…” 

Steve flushed, and Banner frowned repressively. “Tony. Not the time.”

 Tony’s mouth was still open. “You’re no fun,” he said, but did not blurt out any more confusing words.

 James leaned back and watched this unlikely group of people talking over each other and laughing and pretending everything was alright though they had an assassin in their midst, and he thought he saw other faces overlaying theirs, long gone companions and friends.

One day, perhaps, he would call these people friends. 

  

“They like you,” Steve said, brightly.

James glanced at him, scepticism clear in his face.

Steve paused. “It’ll take time, for them to know you. To trust you. But they will. They're good people.” 

They were back in his apartment. James was standing before the dark window, looking out and seeing himself. “Yes,” he said, repeating the words ruminatively. “Good people.” He knew Steve knew that the others didn’t believe he was good. No one who had killed as many as he had could ever be good. 

“You’re a good person too, James,” Steve said, soft, hearing what he didn’t say. Arden, perched on his shoulder, flew up and around the room before coming to land near James. She cocked her head, and James held out his real arm uncertainly, not sure if that was what she wanted. She hopped on to his shoulder, contentedly ruffling her feathers. Lobo chirped where he was sitting, pleased at the gesture. Steve glanced at James. “Can I?” 

James nodded and turned to look as Steve touched the scruffy spotted fur, moving his fingers through the crest and down to scratch the hyena’s chin. 

Something like a smile tugged at James’ lips, and it no longer felt quite as foreign.

 

 

Glory be to God for dappled things—

  For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;

    For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;

Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;

  Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;

    And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

 

All things counter, original, spare, strange;

  Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)

    With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;

He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:

                  Praise him.

 


End file.
